Conundrum
by Sarah1281
Summary: Once everything is out in the open, Conrad reflects on the girl who is both his daughter and yet not and wondering what he is going to do and how things managed to come to this. If he ever needed validation for his hatred of David Clarke, he now has it.


Conundrum

Disclaimer: I do not own Revenge.

David Clarke might not have actually been a terrorist but that didn't mean that Conrad hated him any less than the rest of America. In fact, aside from those few friends and family members of the passengers on that doomed flight, Conrad thought he might have actually hated him _more_ than the others did.

Maybe the technical scope of the crimes that Clarke had committed were less than what everyone else thought he had done but what he had done to Conrad was far more personal than what he had supposedly done to the average person outraged over the horrific headlines they'd read.

What kind of a man would sleep with another man's wife? He had trusted David and the man had betrayed him so was it any wonder that he had been betrayed in turn?

Conrad had never claimed to be the forgiving sort.

That wasn't to say that he didn't blame Victoria as well. Affairs were a two-person deal, after all, so she was just as guilty as Clarke. He didn't understand it, either. They had been so happy – or at least he thought they were – until Clarke had come on the scene and after that Victoria had still pretended but it hadn't been the same.

He hadn't manufactured that plane crash to destroy Clarke's life. He hadn't intended for that to happen at all and he could still remember the ice cold splash of guilt and grief that had washed over him when he realized just who had made all of that possible. He had never thought that the seemingly harmless monetary maneuvering that his company had been engaged in since long before he had taken the reigns could lead to something like that. He would take it back if he could but nothing can change the past.

When he had been able to think clearly, Conrad decided that his company's money had not made the difference between the attack happening or not happening. Terrorists were very determined, very fanatical people, after all, and if they hadn't gotten the financing from Grayson Global then they would have just gotten it elsewhere.

That flight was doomed no matter what or, at the very least, one just like it.

That didn't make the fact that the terrorists hadn't _needed_ to search out another source of funding any better but it did mean that it wasn't his fault that it happened.

He had been perfectly prepared to just have his people keep better track of where their money was going and quietly wait out the storm.

Ironically, it was Victoria that planted the seeds of David Clarke's destruction.

She felt just as guilty and horrified as he had (why would either of them have ever wanted so many innocent people to die?) but she hadn't been able to gauge their true responsibility as he had. She watched the stories of the victims and the tears of the loved ones play out on the news night after night and she had determined that something must be done.

There was never any question of revealing their own involvement. They were most certainly involved but it had been a mistake and so Conrad honestly didn't think that they deserved to lose everything for it.

But Victoria had insisted and that meant finding a scapegoat and Conrad knew just the man.

Victoria had known that there would need to be an innocent person taken down because anyone who knew the truth could point the finger back at them. She had obviously never imagined that this scapegoat would be Clarke and Conrad wondered if she ever would have suggested it if the possibility had occurred to her.

Conrad already hated David Clarke for sleeping with his wife on a regular basis and for daring to love her and to be loved by her in return. The only reason he hadn't fired the man was because he was very good at his job and satisfying his desire for vengeance wouldn't be worth the hit to the company Clarke's loss would represent.

It was, however, worth Clarke's loss to give the public a villain to revile. Since that villain came from within Grayson Global, any possible ties that linked them to the downed plane would be neatly explained away.

Victoria was devastated and though he still loved her, he did get a perverse sort of pleasure in watching her great love fall apart. She testified against Clarke and helped to pound the nails into his coffin. She had her second thoughts but in the end she didn't expose the conspiracy for what it was and she let her lover rot in prison. And despite all of it, Clarke maintained that _she_ was a victim as well. It made him wonder how well Clarke really knew her.

Victoria had never been a victim in her whole life.

The affair had not initially destroyed his love for her but watching Victoria mourn him for nearly twenty years now had done much to poison the affection he had once held for her. It was so trying to be forever held accountable and unforgiven for Clarke's fate, anyway. It was so convenient how she had seemed to explain away or outright forget her own role in it and that it was her idea that began all of this.

The truly ironic bit was that if it wasn't for Charlotte they would have fallen apart a long time ago. Even now they had held off on their divorce for so long because they both knew how ugly things would get if they let the tiniest bit of truth escape past their flawless facades and were painfully aware that each had the power to destroy the other. It would be a pyrrhic victory at best, however.

Charlotte had always been easier to love than Daniel had. It wasn't that he cared any less for his son but Daniel had always needed to be so much more than himself. He was not only Daniel Grayson but the future head of the company he and his father had poured their lives into building and protecting. Terrible things had been done in the name of keeping the company safe and he worried sometimes, especially when Daniel's rebellious teenager years hit, that the boy wouldn't be up to the challenge.

Charlotte could be anything she wanted to be, however, and he had always known that whatever it was it would be spectacular. She was smart and beautiful and had a good head on her shoulders. He had to admit, if only to himself, that he did favor Charlotte but he saw the way Victoria doted on Daniel and had figured that it was the old adage about mama's boys and daddy's girls.

Victoria never treated Charlotte horribly but it was clear even before the two of them had come home from the hospital that she preferred Daniel. Conrad had never really understood why but had been assured that it was normal and the two would probably grow out of it once Charlotte was an adult living on her own.

If only it were that easy.

Conrad had been a little surprised but pleased when Victoria had asked him to stay the night that David Clarke was arrested. They hadn't spent the night together in weeks due to Clarke and the crash. He had hoped, rather foolishly he saw now, that that was a sign that Victoria was planning on putting all of that behind her and to move forward as a family.

Now he realized that they had to have slept together at least once so her claim that Charlotte was his own was credible.

Even though Conrad was painfully aware of Clarke and Victoria, he had never really thought to question that Charlotte was his. Well, not really. He had a few idle thoughts on the matter but he couldn't believe that Victoria would be so careless as to allow herself to become impregnated by her doomed lover. Once he actually saw Charlotte, all half-formed suspicious flew out of his head and he knew that he would do anything for her.

And he had. He'd spent the last seventeen years protecting Charlotte from the world and from her mother's rather baffling style of parenting. He had been there to hold her hand through every childhood problem and teenage uncertainty and he couldn't say what it meant to him when Charlotte had turned up at his doorstep and announced her desire to stay with him in his hotel room rather than in the sprawling mansion that was the Grayson Estate.

And now…and not it was ruined. Maybe. He didn't know.

Charlotte wasn't his; she was David Clarke's.

It wasn't enough that he had stolen his wife's heart and that his influence remained even now after the man himself was dead. Oh, no. The bastard had to have taken Charlotte, too.

It didn't matter that David Clarke had never so much as met their daughter and that Conrad had spent countless hours staying up with her when she was sick or had a bad dream because that man had a claim on her that Conrad could never have.

It wasn't Charlotte's fault, of course, but it was just so hard to look at her and know that she was the child of the man that he hated lovingly conceived with his wife and passed off as his own all these years.

_He had been raising David Clarke's daughter_.

Clarke had had another daughter. Amanda had been taken from Clarke's custody when he was arrested because a prison was no place for a child but he hadn't paid any attention to what happened to her after that. She seemed to be doing fine since she had resurfaced in the Hamptons and was dating Charlotte's boyfriend's brother.

Conrad knew what he would have done if he had found out that Charlotte wasn't his while Victoria was still pregnant and maybe shortly after Charlotte was born. It would have been a clear-cut case of Charlotte not being his and he would have divorced Victoria and silenced her with a few million and the threat of Charlotte's true paternity leaking.

It was so much more complicated now. True, Charlotte wasn't biologically his any more than she had been but he had been raising her for the last seventeen years and that wasn't so easy to walk away from. His memories of her were mostly good, unlike Victoria's he was sure, and every time he was reminded of the time before he knew it made it harder to decide what to do.

He was keeping Charlotte's trust intact and he'd even live up to his promise to pay for Charlotte's boyfriend's schooling. It wasn't her fault she wasn't his, after all, but her mother's. Of course, if Victoria had an ounce of sense and hadn't gotten pregnant by Clarke then Charlotte wouldn't even exist and who knew if she would have gotten pregnant with a second child at all?

Conrad knew what he wanted to happen but he also knew that it was impossible. He wanted Charlotte to be his or at the very least to have gone back to the days where he didn't know. He knew that Victoria would never tell him no matter how nasty things got because it would only hurt herself and Charlotte who she did claim to love even if she didn't always act like it. He almost hadn't gone through with the DNA test but once the possibility was out there then he _had_ to know.

Charlotte wasn't his biologically but she was in so many other ways, so many ways that mattered. Was that enough? He couldn't stand the thought of sharing a daughter with David Clarke but it wasn't like he had a choice in the matter anymore.

He still loved her, he knew that much, but it was still so difficult to be around her. She acted like nothing had changed because to her, nothing had. Technically, nothing _had_ changed and it was just that he was finally aware of the truth of his family after all this time.

In truth, he had been almost relieved when Victoria had practically forced him to make amends with Charlotte. It was hard to reject her when she was just so _innocent_ but he couldn't bring himself to make the first move and make Victoria think that all was forgiven and she was in the clear for passing Clarke's baby off as his for all this time. If it hadn't been for that mysterious source (likely Amanda) then he would have gone to his grave never knowing.

The apology came difficult at first but she was so very receptive to it and after she started talking and reminding him of their idyllic past he found that he really was ready to try to pretend that he didn't know.

If he was going to try again with Charlotte, it would be much easier if she wasn't aware because then he could pretend, too.

Oh, but that hadn't lasted. He hadn't even made it through dinner before Amanda's boyfriend showed up shouting about Victoria's affair with Clarke and threatening to expose it. He'd let Victoria take care of that one. Charlotte was shocked and horrified and Daniel had really not helped by bringing his sister up.

Still, if it hadn't been for the news that Victoria was passing off her disgusting affair with Clarke as a one-time rape and painting herself as the victim once again then he might have kept to the deal and let it go.

He did love Charlotte and wanted to keep the truth from her but he just couldn't resist setting the story straight. He at least remembered to preface his announcement with a promise that he'd still be there for her but he wasn't sure that it registered in the face of her world crashing.

He immediately regretted it as he watched her world crash all around her but he knew himself too well to think that he'd have done anything different if he had another possibility.

His father certainly wasn't pleased at the way he'd behaved (not that he said anything about Victoria's behavior, naturally) and started talking about the sanctity of family like it had long-since been a value of his but Conrad knew that if he had adopted that belief it had certainly been after his own son was grown.

He wasn't looking forward to the fallout, especially considering that he had somehow come out looking like the bad guy while Victoria and her long-time affair and love child with the most hated man in America still smelled like roses.

He didn't even know why he was surprised. It didn't matter what Victoria did, it never had, because somehow she could always find a way to blame others even when she was caught in the most outrageous lies. He suspected that it wouldn't be long before their son was on her side again and he had no idea if Charlotte would ever come around again.

Maybe he should get Daniel tested as well to see if either of his children were really his. He didn't need any more surprises.

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